Come to think of it, I wouldn’t have started the sentence with “Along his climb to power,” as Neuharth’s ruthlessness was demonstrably ongoing – likely an inherent trait.

Few of us have the stomach to participate in conviction corruption, but Neuharth certainly did. His phony July 19, 1994 USA Today “all clear” on false convictions achieved using redundantly discredited dog handler John Preston preceded the related executions of Gerald Stano (1998) and Linroy Bottoson (2002). And Neuharth was cool with that.

Preston claimed to have participated in @1,000 criminal investigations nationwide, and some of victims of his perjury victims remain incarcerated to this day, although Preston was initially discredited in December of 1982.

Of those @1,000 pretenses at scent identification expertise, Preston playacted about 100 of them right where Neuharth lived … Brevard County, Florida.

Neuharth was ever willing to let innocents rot behind bars, or get fried alive in Old Sparky, or get a fatal hot shot that may or may not be painless while strapped to a gurney with ghouls looking on. So long as he could continue to steer the outcomes of elections – elections that kept participants in Preston playacting in public office – Neuharth was one disgustingly-rotten-to-the-core happy camper.

So bury Neuharth, already.

And praise him at significant risk of being deemed as dastardly as he was.